


Slow Time

by cynthia_arrow (thesilverarrow)



Category: Panic! at the Disco
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-14
Updated: 2013-03-14
Packaged: 2017-12-05 06:17:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,629
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/719820
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thesilverarrow/pseuds/cynthia_arrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Ryan has careful hands, gentle but precise.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Slow Time

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was originally posted on livejournal, a long time ago. I'm just archiving it here.

Brendon likes it when Ryan makes up his face. He stands close and stays close. Right now, tonight, he's closer than normal, close enough Brendon can smell his hair gel and deodorant and even traces of that sandalwood soap he likes.   
  
Brendon sits on the counter, and Ryan stands with his thighs resting against Brendon's knees. Ryan has careful hands, gentle but precise. Sometimes, Brendon thinks about those hands doing other things to him, things less than careful but still precise and perfect, but he doesn't think about that when Ryan's lining his eyes for a show. He just counts Ryan's breaths and watches his adam's apple bob when he swallows. He only sneaks looks at Ryan's face--unless they've reached the step in the process where Brendon has to look straight at him, into his eyes.  
  
Brendon likes the way Ryan's own makeup somehow renders him more sharply masculine but also more beautiful at the same time. And he likes the birds. Ryan smiles like a thing with wings, when he smiles. Mostly, he doesn't, but it's not like that means he's always unhappy. Brendon's sure he's often content--with life, with their music, with himself--but he keeps it to himself, like he does almost everything else. Some things he shoves down, but some he simply wears on the inside. Brendon envies that, not because he doesn't have his own private contentments, but because no one knows he's capable. He wants them to know.  
  
Ryan's breath ghosts over Brendon's cheek as he touches up the inner corner of his left eye.  
  
"Stop fidgeting," Ryan says.   
  
Brendon doesn't even say he's sorry. Ryan doesn't want him to be sorry, just wants him to be still. So Brendon focuses on not moving, even as Ryan's hip knocks against his inner thigh as he steps forward and reaches to the counter behind and beside him for another pencil.  
  
"You're not sleeping," Ryan says. It's not a question.  
  
"Some."  
  
"Not enough. You've got bags. Under your eyes."  
  
"That's just because you're looking so close." Brendon pauses, then he adds, "And, actually, you only know I'm not sleeping because you aren't either."  
  
Ryan's mouth curves into a graceful smile. It's his eyes that remind Brendon that he's not so in control and put together, that he's just as young and thrown as Brendon is. Sure, Brendon's the one laying it out there every night, but it's Ryan he's putting on display. That can't be easy for him, even if it's easier that it's Brendon doing it. But Ryan so rarely looks ruffled. He just patiently prepares them for each show, each attempt at doing this better, trying to make Brendon's face look just as mysterious and beautiful as his own.   
  
The world is whirling around them, with people and music, but they have their own little private island here of measured movements and quiet. They could talk, and about anything in the world, things they wouldn't have the guts to say to each other's faces from across a room but could say now, close like this, but he has the odd notion that Ryan hears him better when he's not talking.  
  
Ryan's drawing on his cheek now, and sometimes--now--it feels like something almost mystical and sacred, even if Brendon knows exactly what it looks like. He doesn't need to turn to the mirror to picture his face. Whether he can believe that face is his is a different story. Ryan holds his jaw firmly in one hand, pulling the skin taut so the pencil doesn't stutter. He always concentrates the most on this part, the free-hand drawing. And since he's not looking into Brendon's eyes anymore, Brendon can finally really look at him again--if he's subtle about it, and he's learned to be that, at least for Ryan Ross.  
  
He watches Ryan's lips move as he says, "I just can't sleep on the bus."  
  
"Me either," Brendon replies. Then a little melodramatically, but not enough for it to really be a joke, hesays, "We're doomed as rock stars."  
  
Ryan instantly shakes his head, something flashing up in his eyes fierce and hard. "We'll figure it out."  
  
Swallowing, Brendon just nods.  
  
There's nothing left to do with Brendon's face now, but Ryan doesn't go anywhere. He leans over and drops the last pencil on the counter and takes Brendon's jaw in his hand again, turns his head so he can look him over.   
  
Ryan says, "Isn't there anything you can think of to do?"  
  
"Hmm?"  
  
"Sleeping better. Seriously, you look like hell."  
  
Brendon frowns. "Well, what about you?"  
  
"Maybe I could learn to sleep with music." He shrugs. "You know, headphones?"  
  
Brendon shakes his head. "Music keeps me awake. I think too much."  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"The only thing I know that works..."   
  
"What?"  
  
"Well, for me, I sleep better when I sleep with someone."   
  
Ryan's about to reply when someone calls for them,  _five minutes, guys_ , and it reminds them that they're going to have to swing back into motion. Maybe they should even start now.  
  
Ryan's still holding his face in his hand, and as he brings his head back to center again, he tips his jaw down so he can lean in and kiss his forehead. That's not all that unusual. It's Ryan's preferred way of showing affection: a hand on the neck insistently pulling the head forward, and a decisive but soft brush of his lips just above an eyebrow. But this time Ryan keeps his hand on Brendon's face, and he nudges his chin up again and kisses the corner of his mouth.  
  
Brendon's eyebrows crease a little in surprise, and Ryan smiles again, fond but somehow a little more guarded.  
  
"For luck," he says, hastily dropping his hands from Brendon's face but otherwise not moving away. Something about him is hovering, and Brendon is waiting.  
  
Later tonight, they'll again be hovering, waiting. And they'll discover that they don't fit together in Brendon's bunk all that comfortably, though after so many long, restless nights, they'll try anything. At least that will be Ryan's reasoning when he comes and stands in the aisle in his boxers and a worn t-shirt and patiently waits for Brendon to shove over.  
  
Ryan will half curl behind him, knees against the backs of his and one of his hands tentatively curved over his ribs, as though he's not sure if he's found that distance that's close enough without being too close, far enough away without being too far.  
  
Brendon won't be able to think about anything else but that curious tipping point of distance, how it changes all the time between them, and just before they drift off, Brendon will ask, "Why do you stand so close when you do my makeup?"  
  
"So close?"  
  
"Feels close."  
  
Ryan will be quiet for a moment, and Brendon will feel him tense a little the way he does when he's unsure but doesn't want to do anything to draw attention to how unsure he is.  
  
After a moment, Ryan will simply reply, "I didn't realize."  
  
Brendon will nod and think of now, them standing under harsh fluorescent lights and trying to camouflage themselves for people who mostly already see them as they want to be seen. They do it for themselves, then, to feel like they belong where they are.  
  
Brendon will think of this moment, how what he said wasn't an invitation--at least not a conscious one, no more than giving up his face to Ryan's hands has ever been.  
  
Then he'll finally say, "Not that I mind."  
  
After a long beat, he'll feel Ryan shift a little closer. Ryan will exhale and press his forehead to the back of Brendon's neck, and Brendon will be shocked that his heart doesn't start up and betray him. He will realize he's apparently learned all his needs to know of patience.  
  
"You think you can sleep?" Brendon will say once they're settled.   
  
"I don't know," Ryan will murmur. Then his voice will be warmer when he adds, "I can't know if you keep talking."  
  
"Sorry."  
  
"It's okay."  
  
Brendon will get used to the weight of Ryan's long fingers around his waist. It will be like being anchored. If he feels anything else, he will soften the edges of it just as he does so many other moments. He'll try to enjoy it like he's outside it, seeing it like a snapshot that makes sense in a life that doesn't quite anymore.  
  
But now, perched on this counter, Brendon doesn't know what's coming, only what is. He thinks he'd like to stay in this moment forever, even if it means remaining in a limbo of uncertainty, of not quite having what he wants. That's somehow fitting: he thinks he's fallen in love with Ryan Ross a hundred times, but it still surprises him when it happens because he always lets himself forget.   
  
That sort of makes it better, though. It's bewildering, this falling and falling, always new and always the same, but that kind of thing is familiar anymore, like the spike of adrenaline as they hit the stage or the moment he makes Ryan smile like he means it.  
  
 _For luck_ , Ryan had said.  
  
"As if I need luck," Brendon replies with a playful roll of his eyes.   
  
He's aware that he's changed now, his tone and even his body language; he's moved outward, pushing so Ryan can allow himself to drift away. And Ryan does. He steps back like there's not a pull between their bodies and never has been. But as he shuffles up to the mirror, he smiles to himself, and that smile remains even when he leans close and peers at his face like it might've changed when he wasn't looking.


End file.
